April 15, 2016

Can India's Think Tanks Be Truly Effective?

I have worked for much of the past decade in, or with,
think tanks in both the US and in India, and am regularly confronted with
misperceptions and misapprehensions about the sector. What is the purpose of
think tanks? Who sets their agenda? What do they do on a day-to-day basis? The
answers are, unfortunately, not so simple.

These questions are particularly important today because
significant changes are afoot among New Delhi's think tanks. The opening of
Carnegie India means that one of the world's leading think tanks on
international affairs will now have a permanent presence in India. Carnegie
joins its Washington neighbour The Brookings Institution, in many ways the
archetypal think tank, which established Brookings India in New Delhi a few
years ago, and recently moved its offices in the diplomatic enclave of
Chanakyapuri.

Meanwhile, in March, the Observer Research Foundation
concluded the Raisina Dialogue, giving India a major international policy
conference. And the appointments last year of former Ambassador to Nepal and
Afghanistan Jayant Prasad as Director General of the Institute for Defence
Studies and Analyses (IDSA) and Nalin Surie, ex-envoy to China and the UK, as
head of the Indian Council on World Affairs (ICWA) means that accomplished
diplomats now head the two premier government-funded foreign policy think
tanks. Taken together, these developments offer a good opportunity to revisit
think tanks' role in the Indian policy establishment.

How think tanks work

The primary purpose of think tanks is to generate ideas
and debate on matters of public policy. In that sense, they are both research
institutions and conveners, bringing together different viewpoints and
facilitating an exchange of views. In terms of research, what think tanks do is
not dissimilar to business consulting, intelligence analysis, investigative
journalism, or academic research in the social sciences. The difference,
however, is that the research produced by think tanks is meant to inform and
influence public policy. Their target audience is therefore either policymakers
in government or the broader public.

Think tanks also serve as a venue for political leaders,
bureaucrats and military officers to exchange views and interact with other
actors: foreign counterparts, the media, academics, corporate representatives
and the wider public. Having neutral venues for these kinds of interactions is
particularly important given the changing roles and growing clout of some of
these stakeholders in public policy formulation and implementation.

Despite these broad shared characteristics, there is
considerable diversity among think tanks in terms of their mandates,
priorities, and structures. Some focus narrowly on specific aspects of public
policy, such as foreign relations and defence, domestic politics and governance,
economic and trade policy, or education, migration, and environmental issues.
Others are broad, covering a range of topics. Some, such as ICWA and IDSA, are
government-affiliated while others are entirely autonomous and privately
managed. While some Indian think tanks function almost exclusively as research
institutes, such as the Centre for Policy Research, others prioritize
convening, such as the Observer Research Foundation.

Think tanks such as IDSA and the National Council of
Applied Economic Research (NCAER) have been active in India since the mid-20th
century. But the last 25 years have witnessed a tremendous growth and
proliferation of Indian institutions, including privately-funded entities and
military service-specific think tanks (the Centre for Land and Warfare Studies,
the Centre for Air Power Studies, and the National Maritime Foundation).
Location matters, given the need to be proximate to policy makers. There is a
reason that global think tanks have congregated in major capital cities such as
Washington and London, Brussels and Beijing. So it is only natural that the
majority of Indian institutes have been established in Delhi. However, newer
initiatives like Gateway House in Mumbai, the Takshashila Institution in
Bangalore, and the Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy in Chennai now
provide platforms beyond the capital.

Glorified talk shops?

If there is one big challenge that all think tanks face
it is measuring their effectiveness. Ideas coming out of think tanks, even when
adopted as government policy, are rarely credited as such. Some of the most
effective work done by think tanks--in the form of private briefings and inputs
to government policy makers--is often, by necessity, not publicly acknowledged.
It becomes easy, then, to dismiss think tanks as ineffective talk shops. But at
their best, they can play a big role in advising governments on sound policy,
enabling increasingly important dialogue with a variety of stakeholders, and
interpreting obscure policy issues for the broader public. They can also help
build expertise, and perform in-depth or specialised research that government
do not have the time or capacity to do. Despite its healthy growth in recent
years, the Indian think tank sector today suffers from certain shortcomings.
These have prevented them from competing for talent with academia, the private
sector, and competitors abroad. They have also been inhibited from being fully
effective.

Making Indian think tanks more effective

A few measures, if taken, could rapidly revitalize the
Indian think tank industry, to the benefit of these institutions, government
policy and public discourse.

1. Research needs to be given priority over convening

There is today no shortage in India of policy
conferences, panel discussions, and Track II dialogues (which involve
non-official participants from different countries). On almost any given
evening in Delhi, there are book launches or speeches by visiting dignitaries
hosted by one or another Indian think tank. But there remains a paucity of
authoritative, in-depth, ground-breaking research. Book-length studies on such
topics as the evolution of India-Southeast Asia relations, Pakistan's
contemporary political dynamics, India's trade policy, defence acquisitions,
the 1965 war, or India during the Narasimha Rao years--to list just a few
topics--would be immensely useful. Op-eds and policy papers remain useful
vehicles to disseminate ideas, but think tanks provide the luxury of time for
truly detailed and path-breaking work.

2. Quality needs to be given priority over quantity

Think tank scholars ought to be among the most
knowledgeable experts in their fields, and that means that institutions must be
able to compete for talent with the private sector, universities and foreign
organizations. At present, India's think tanks often function as homes for
retired civil servants and military officers. These former officials can--and
do--offer a wealth of experience, enabling them to document issues on which
they have had first-hand experience and reflect on lessons learned. But
generating new ideas and fresh perspectives will require tapping a wider pool
of talent. This means investing in regional and topical expertise, a variety of
disciplines (history, economics, and area studies, in addition to political
science), and a mastery of languages. We currently lack the requisite expertise
on our neighbours: China, Myanmar, Iran, and even Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
and Pakistan. Economic expertise, in particular, is missing at many Indian
institutes. Establishing an external peer review process for publications will
also help improve the quality of output across the board.

3. More autonomy and transparency

Institutions affiliated with the government are in
constant danger of becoming extensions of ministries: rigidly hierarchical,
risk-averse, bureaucratic, status conscious, and driven by patronage. The
entire raison d'être of think tanks is to overcome these constraints.
Meanwhile, privately funded think tanks have to show they are not beholden to
their benefactors if they are to retain their credibility. Transparency about
sources of funding allows people to draw their own conclusions about the nature
of any research.

4. Think tank scholars need more interactions with
government

This can be mutually beneficial. Unlike in countries
where a revolving door enables experts to migrate between think tanks and
government positions, in India, a career bureaucracy inhibits such career
paths. Quite often, the lack of interactions with officials means that think
tank experts in India are badly misinformed. Many of their
recommendations--while well-intentioned--are simply impossible to implement,
failing to take into account bureaucratic processes, political realities or
resource constraints. By taking on more government advisory work, think tanks
would increase the expertise available to officials while becoming
better-informed about government priorities and processes.

5. Research needs to be usable

Finally, one big difference between policy research and
other fields is that it cannot simply dwell on the past, but must have
implications for the present and future. Far too much work being done by think
tanks - and not just in India - tends to be descriptive, rather than
analytical.

Additionally, for policymakers pressed for time, only
certain kinds of information are useful. New conceptual frameworks that
function as shorthand for policies (such as "Look East" or
"Digital India") can enrich public discourse, while specific domain
knowledge (such as language or area studies) and data compilation are useful
contributions for babus pressed for time or requiring specialized expertise.
Policy research must also be easily accessible if it is to inform officials
pressed for time or shape the public debate, a particular challenge in an era
of information overload. Rethinking outputs, both their form and their very
medium, is a necessity for all think tanks today. Many are branching out into
online content and multimedia presentations, such as podcasts, videos and
interactive information platforms. Even with traditional written outputs,
verbosity is too often equated with erudition. Presenting information in a
manner that is easily digestible remains a challenge.

If it were to take some of these considerations into
account--more research, higher quality standards, greater autonomy and
transparency, more interactions with government, and higher-impact
outputs--there is no reason that the Indian think tank sector cannot flourish.
We are witnessing a period of increasingly acrimonious and often ill-informed
public discourse. Now is the perfect time for India's think tanks to come into
their own.